Man Kills Pit Bull for Tearing His $3.78 Shirt, Prosecutors Say

Damien Wilkerson, 34, of the 700 block of North Pine Avenue, was charged with felony aggravated cruelty to animals.
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Chicago Police Department

COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A West Side man, angry that his $3.78 shirt was torn by a pit bull, is accused of beating a neighbor's puppy and stabbing its mother to death before dumping the pit bull's corpse in the trash.

Damien Wilkerson, 34, of the 700 block of North Pine Avenue, was charged with felony aggravated cruelty to animals.

Witnesses saw Wilkerson beat two dogs with sticks and rods before stabbing one of them to death near his Austin home on Saturday, prosecutors said during his bond hearing Sunday.

Police documents allege that when they approached Wilkerson, he told officers, "Yeah I killed that f---ing dog, I don't give a f---k," and, "The dog tore my shirt, this sh--t was $3.78."

After officers read his Miranda rights, Wilkerson told police that one of the dogs "was a puppy who ran away and the other dog, yeah, I killed him."

Wilkerson allegedly told police that he was standing over his fence when one of the dogs in the yard ripped his shirt, according to police documents. Wilkerson admitted he hopped over the fence and started to beat one of the dogs with a milk crate, according to the documents.

Then, when the older dog went for his throat, he "choked the dog out," the police documents quote Wilkerson saying.

"So what, I killed it, it attacked me," he said, according to police documents.

Police found the dead dog in a trash can in an alley near Wilkerson's home, according to the documents.

Reached by phone after the hearing, his grandmother, Ora Wilkerson, said the dog, a pit bull, belonged to a neighborhood friend and was well known around the area. The pit bull was the mother of the puppy, according to Ora Wilkerson, 75.

She said the older dog was generally not violent and had often been in her home, which she shares with her grandson. Ora Wilkerson said she wasn't there when the alleged incident happened, but if her grandson had killed a dog, "he had to feel threatened" and was likely defending himself, she said.

To her knowledge, he's never killed a dog before, his grandmother said.